Introduction

Every generation may believe its time is unprecedented. Yet the current generation of youth, the largest in history, is facing a combination of social and economic conditions and demographic trends certain to make their lives dramatically different from those of their parents and grandparents. In this chapter we ask how the absolute and relative numbers of young people and their nations' social and economic circumstances shape their futures. We do so to highlight how demographic conditions help or hinder governments' and families' investments in youth. In this way we complement the other chapters, which focus on the lived experience of adolescents in various world regions.

Who falls into the “youth” category, and what are the defining features of this group? The definition of youth is fluid and arbitrarily defined, both physically and socially, and varies across cultures and eras. The implications of defining this phase one way or another are significant for program development. For the purposes of this chapter, however, we can agree that in most cultures, the 2nd, and even 3rd, decade of life is an eventful time, a period in which young people experience changes in their roles and shifts in social expectations of them.

This chapter considers how differences in age distribution and in the culturally determined transitions that define youth together shape the experience of young people in various parts of the world.